


defy other godhood

by clytemnestras



Series: fem february 2016 [4]
Category: All For the Game - Nora Sakavic, Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - All Female, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 12:52:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6052291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clytemnestras/pseuds/clytemnestras
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>my church offers no absolutes</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	defy other godhood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kwritten](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/gifts).



> plath quote for title? of course, of course

“Hit me,” she says. Like it’s an easy thing.

 

They are threats. A sharp knife, an aching tree.

 

“I won’t hit you”, Rona says, a half truth to the promise made by the sweet little purple on her own wrists, just under the silver St Christopher that holds her to her words.

 

“Hit me,” she says, a slice of pink through her hair like a bloodspot blossoming through snow. A slam against the wall, knife a delicate weight under her solid ribs. A smile.

 

“Bang, you’re dead.”

 

“You’re a girl with a knife, I’m a girl with a deathwish - what did you expect?”

 

They don’t kiss - maybe they should, but they are not _I should_ girls. They are _I have,_ and _I will,_ and _I am sorry._

 

The knife drops, the world drops, same difference.

 

*

 

They sleep side by side, face to face. On a bed, the first time, on the forest floor the next.

 

(Or, it’s possible that’s only a dream, something that tastes so much like blood and ichor and rosewater - something that tastes so much like wanting that she holds it in her hands and when she opens her eyes the body is still beside her, breathing low, slow.

 

This is the most terrifying thing she’s ever woken to.)

 

Renee slides out from under her arms sometime before the dark lifts, her jacket left behind, her knife in a tree.

 

*

 

“Hit me,” she says and ducks.

 

Rona watches her own hands fly with detached certainty. She feints, she slides, catches skin under her dirty fingernails. She can feel her heart in her throat. She can taste sweat and glory in the missed and landed punches.

 

“Hit me back.”

 

Renee smiles and ducks again. “No.”

 

Rona grits her teeth and rushes forward. “Hit. Me. Back.”

 

Renee twists and slams Rona against a flaking old oak. Her fingers scrabble and dye it bloody.

 

“Be better.”

 

*

 

A late night at Monmouth the dark becomes a sensitive, delicate thing. Nora sits with Rona when she’s pulling up the floorboards, finding the trinket box hidden there.

 

There’s a string of amethyst rosary beads, a laminated picture of the Virgin Mary and a book of scribbled half-memories from dreams, bookmarked with a sprig of lavender.

 

Nothing in her father’s hand suggests you can pull out girls from your sleep with shadows under their eyes from memories of violence.

 

Nora holds her head in cold hands as she prays.

 

*

 

“Hit me,” she says.

 

Rona slides under, takes Renee’s legs out from beneath her and scrambles back up. When she twists, ready to pull Renee up she’s knocked back, a hard blow to her ribs, another to the rough muscle of her stomach. She catches her arm and yanks her down, touching the floor before reaction can kick in.

 

Renee waits a moment then sits down beside. Dangerous closeness, dangerous tenderness. “Who taught you to fight?”

 

Rona spits and there’s a small line of blood, bitten through her own cheek and her tongue prodding the wound. “I taught myself.”

 

Renee’s hand brushes hers, not soft, not for an athlete, or a weapon, or a real girl, but it’s a comfortable weight, like the warm rush of laboured breath is in her lungs. “Maybe that’s your problem, then.”

 

*

 

Rona picks up the crucifix where it’s a weight on Renee’s collarbone. “Spirtitus sancti,” she says and lets it go. Chainsaw sits on the floor behind them, watching Renee with her head tilted. She hops forward, then slides back and settles, content, for the moment, that everything is safe.

 

“Is it faith or just something you need to cling on to? I can hardly tell.” Renee’s eyes are liquid and soft. She looks ready to crumble, as if the world she’s always dragged around is starting to crack her bones.

 

“It’s my blood.” There has never been a better answer than that. Every inch of Rona is a blood promise.

 

Renee twists her neck so their eyes meet, gentle but watching close. “What do you think it’s like, not being dangerous?”

 

Rona thinks - thinks Blue hugging Renee close the first time they met, her switchblade in her jeans pocket like a threat or a sign of solidarity; Nora flaring the electrics at Monmouth on the nights she wakes up screaming; Gansey stepping between Rona and Kavinsky with car keys in hand; Amanda with that dark look in her eyes when the monsters sit and roar inside her head as Cabeswater calls. And then; Kavinsky herself, bleached hair, dark eyes, pill melting on her tongue.

 

“I’ve never met a girl who wasn’t.”

 

*

 

“Hit me”, she says.

 

 _I can’t, it’s killing me._ Rona holds Blue’s knife under her belt. She stared at herself in it for hours, that refracted image, shaved sides and viciousness, perfect image of the girl you’d regret meeting in an alleyway. She doesn’t move.

 

Renee flicks her hair away. “Come on, please.”

 

“I’m sorry.”

 

Rona walks away, still with the knife pressed against her skin, siphoning her body heat.

 

*

 

Renee sits beside her in Cabeswater, reaches under the shed leaves to the daisies underneath. “I have tried so hard - I won’t stop trying for you.”

 

Rona smiles, sneers, the same flick of her mouth. “Give up, Princess.” She lights a match on the tree bark and all the world screams inside her head in protest. _Fuck you,_ she thinks. _You can’t love and scorn me at the same time._ The long drag of cigarette smoke feels victorious.

 

“Thanks, but I won’t, sorry.” Renee is smiling but it’s a fragile one, a dangerous one. She twists and settles her weight on Rona’s hips. The thin silver chain around her throat swings between them like a noose or like a promise, the cross dowsing their fate.

 

Rona exhales her smoke and it filters around Renee’s face like rolling mists.

 

*

 

“Hit me”, she says, and Rona slides forward, muscles fluid like rainwater.

 

She ducks and swerves and slams Renee against the bedroom wall. The knife in her hand is a solid pressure in her hands, barely grazing the edge of Renee’s rubs.

 

She smiles and leans forward careful not to put pressure on the blade, and kisses the corner of Renee’s mouth.

 

“Stay”, Rona says, and Renee turns to make their mouths line up.

 

“Make me.”

**Author's Note:**

> come chat with me on tumblr [@bohemicns](https://) if you feel so inclined


End file.
